Bobby Jindal is serving his second term as governor of Louisiana. Jindal, a Republican, is widely considered to be a likely candidate in the 2016 presidential election.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal's refusal to accept almost $16 billion in extra Medicaid money was destined to hurt thousands of low-income Louisiana residents who lack health insurance. That has been clear for months, as study after study - including the state's own - showed that tens of thousands of people would benefit if Louisiana accepted the Medicaid expansion that is part of President Barack Obama's health-care act.

But a new analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation puts the situation in stark terms: Without the expansion, 242,150 poor Louisiana residents won't have access to the insurance offerings the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 was designed to provide.

That includes 87 percent of the adults in Louisiana - excluding the elderly - who live in poverty ...

The Affordable Care Act was written to change that and to close gaps in Medicaid by broadening coverage to a greater percentage of low-income residents.

But Gov. Jindal's rejection of the money means those residents are still out of luck in Louisiana. ...

Comments then by Dr. Don Erwin, the founder and CEO of the St. Thomas Community Health Center, were prophetic: "For those states that don't accept Medicaid expansion, that means the poorest of our people will not be eligible for anything. They won't be eligible for insurance exchanges, they won't be eligible for Medicaid, and they represent right now a real serious problem for our state."

The Kaiser Family Foundation's analysis shows just how serious the problem is.

Gov. Jindal has said he is opposed to the Medicaid expansion because of concerns about costs to the state and not wanting to have so many people on government-provided insurance. Would he really rather they have no insurance? The state's costs for the expansion are minuscule. The federal government will pay 100 percent of the cost in the first three years, with the state paying no more than 10 percent after that. ...

The letters delivered to the governor by the ministers, doctors and other advocates in September emphasized that point. People are dying in our community because they lack health care, they said. There is no moral reason for Louisiana to refuse billions in federal dollars that could change that, they said.

No moral reason at all. Let Gov. Jindal know that. Call him. Email him. Get your friends and neighbors to do the same.

It's not right to leave all these people stranded when it would be so easy to help them.